Inspiration Station

I know, I know. It appears as though I've taken a hiatus from Renovating Tara without telling anyone. Instead of a long, drawn out explanation of why, I think a picture will suffice.

So yes, we thought it was wise to add another personality to the mix. I now have five children- Rhett, my girls, and my yellow labs.

Summertime is busy for everyone regardless of whether you're adding family members, I know. So who has time for home renovating projects?

We do!

Despite the hectic work schedules, play schedules, and everything in between, I love to have a project going on. In the next post I'll show more of Rhett's handywork on the treehouse/shed/fortress, but I want to take a second to highlight a way to keep all the inspiration for those projects organized.

You know how I love to be organized.

The problem with the inspiration I find in magazines is this: I love something, I dog-ear a page, and then I either throw the magazine away or forget about what I marked entirely. So what's the point? Does this happen to you, too? Drives me crazy.

Then I realized I had the solution lying in my closet. I had a huge bulletin board left over from my old office and so I casually covered it in...burlap, of course. (Yes, I'm still on a natural fibers/burlap kick) Any fabric you like will work, of course, but burap is what I had on hand and I love the texture it adds to a blank wall. I hung the bulletin board on our blank guest room wall and TA-DA! I have an inspiration station for 2.49 plus tax (the cost of a new set of thumb tacks). As you can imagine, I immediately grabbed a stack of House Beautiful magazines and went to work with the scissors.

It was missing a little bit of zing and personality, so I did have to add a bit of flair...

...but what I have ultimately is a visual reminder of all the things I've loved in the past month. All the ideas, trinkets, gadgets, and colors that made me smile are all in one place- and how great is that?

It's also nice to know that if the board gets to have too much personality over time, it will never have as much personality as the new puppy. Heaven help us.

Daylillies!

I'm not one to extol the virtues of delayed gratification, mainly because I have zero patience. However, when the rewards of hard labor present themselves so beautifully at last after months of work, it's hard to resist being excited about them!

When we decided on a location for the treehouse, Rhett and I uprooted a good number of mystery bulbs to clear the land. I'm thrilled that the bulbs I replanted in the front beds have turned out to be lovely daylillies- and they're gracing us with their color and beauty this week. Happy Summer!

More to come!

A Happy Girl

Our oldest daughter, relaxing in her new tree-home. :)

Construction by Moonlight

When Rhett said the treehouse portion of this little building would be done by the end of May, he was serious. So serious, in fact, that he's outside right now putting the finishing touches on the ladder.

I apologize for the dark picture, but what can I say? It's 9pm!

Progress!

No, really! We've made more progress on the treehouse. If I couldn't see progress like this, I would definitely think my husband was having an affair with a cicada, becuase he's been spending a lot of time outside.

All this to prove that while the posts may have slowed lately, we've still been working. Take a look! Should be ready to play in tomorrow :)

They're Here.

No, not the cicadas, though that seems to be what everyone is talking about.

Those cicada creatures are already driving me bananas in fact. I can hardly hear myself type! Our oldest daughter has become slightly obsessed with collecting the shells, the sight of which absolutely gives me the willies. Yuck! The idea of a bug that comes up every 7 (or 13) years to only sing loudly, mate, and die is gross.

Fortunately, more than cicadas have arrived at Tara. Fairies! Yes, fairies. Don't believe me? They've taken up residence in the backyard on the old birdfeeder.

They've even created a little sign- how quaint!

Our oldest daughter hopped inside a few days ago to tell us that she's seen one- maybe two. She reported to me that they're far too quick for me to actually get a good look at, but if I'm lucky I might be able to see a glimmer of sparkling dust. How fun!

I love to see something magical come to stay at Tara in addition to the deer, bunnies, and variety of birds.

Message to the fairies: Welcome! Message to the cicadas: GO HOME.

"Mom doesn't go to Home Depot!"

Thus squealed my oldest daughter in the carpool lane this afternoon.

She asked what I had done during the day and I rattled off the usual errands- grocery store, dry cleaners, post office- but when I added that I'd been to Home Depot she came unglued.

"What!? Home Depot?" she asked.
"Well, I had to get flowers for the front pots and..."
"Oh! For flowers! I thought you meant for tools or wood or something. And my mom doesn't do stuff like THAT!" and she began to laugh uncontrolably.

No, I don't usually go to Home Depot so I can see how it was out of the ordinary. But still- why does she think that Mommy can't go to Home Depot? Understandably, if I had said J Crew instead of Home Depot she wouldn't have batted an eye...but I wonder if sometimes she sees me only as another mom in a polo dress, making grocery lists, planting impatiens, doing laundry, washing dishes, etc.

When my daughter looks at me, does she only see this?

Or does she ever see this?

Granted, she knows I can do pullups and run with the best of 'em (by the way, you KNOW June was hitting the gym- look at that waist!), so she may know I am physically fit- but does she know I am capable? Does she know that if anything ever happened to Rhett I would be able to hold it all together? Maybe our larger home renovation journeys would end, but can she feel assured that I would be able to fix leaky faucets? Paint walls? Install printers? And maybe I can even do those things without breaking a nail (or whining about it).

Sometimes I wonder.

I take for granted sometimes that my own mother is a warrior in her own right. A single mom for the majority of my childhood, she did it all- cooking, cleaning, scheduling, child-rearing, AND bringing home the bacon. So much of me has always wanted to be a stay-at-home mother, and I'm thankful I am. However, I have to ask myself sometimes that if in wanting so badly the lifestyle my own mother was not able to have I have somehow negated to make sure my daughter knows I would be capable if I was ever on my own. Capable of say, going to Home Depot. In short, will she look at me with admiration for my strong character as I do my own mother, or will she see me only as a source for fashion advice?

So, when I pulled the car into the driveway, I took her out to see the screw that I drilled into her treehouse. Yes, ME. I did it. (Mainly because Rhett needed me to drill it while he pushed the board into place, but that's neither here nor there.)

"You know I drilled this, right?" I said, pointing to one small screw out of about a gazillion.
"Yes."
"Because you saw me do it yesterday. That's right, Mommy can operate power tools."
"Okay. Can I play with the neighbors?"

I don't know if the message got through to her, but I have to say that I am convinced that the whole treehouse would topple to the ground if it wasn't for the one screw that I drilled. Mommy is a super-hero, and don't you forget it.

I hope she comes to see more of Mommy being capable in the renovation stories that follow (please see the post on my shoveling the driveway from a few months ago...) In the meantime, I am going to wait on Rhett to get home so he can drill holes in the bottom of my new planters.